As the name suggests, the 12 Minutes Max Sampler presented works drawn from this past season’s 12 Minute Max series, a series designed to showcase the work of “emerging talents and emerging works from established artists” in Vancouver.
“Who is she?” ask the program notes for Robin Poitras’s performance of SHE at the Chapel Arts Centre, part of the Dancing on the Edge festival. “Is she a musician/is she a dancer/is she a singer?” But the performance itself – an arresting, vivid contribution by a deeply skilled performer – asks more radical questions about embodiment, momentum and resonance.
I’ve really struggled with this review. I saw the Bard on the Beach production of Richard II last weekend and have had a tough time formulating my thoughts. The main reason: I really didn’t like the show. You’d think it would be easier to write a nasty review than a glowing one but this isn’t always the case.
John Murphy and Haig Sutherland in Richard II (this time, it's personal); photo by David Blue
Thank you Deborah Dunn for being so talented a dancer and so funny too!
Deborah Dunn presented four short choreographies, Four Quartets, as part of the Dancing on the Edge Festival; it was the last show I saw as part of the festival, and it was such a welcome highlight.
Henry Daniel’s *T2*, performed as part of this year’s "Dancing on the Edge Festival", was a piece with some interesting and some aesthetically pleasing moments but overall it left no distinct impression emotionally, aesthetically or intellectually. It’s not that there wasn’t any worthwhile content – there was – but this was a piece composed of so many disparate elements that I simply had a hard time finding a throughline or central message or truth from this show.
This was my second opportunity to see Wen Wei Wang’s *Three Sixty Five*, and before the show, I was excited. I loved Three Sixty Five the first time I saw it and was looking forward to seeing its highly emotive physicality again as part of this year’s "Dancing on the Edge Festival":http://www.dancingontheedge.org/. Of course, choreographies evolve, and Three Sixty Five was a different show the second time around; it seemed a bit smoothed down, mellower in some ways, but it remained a showcase for the outstanding talent of Wang and his dancers....
On a warm, windy summer evening in July, I sat on a folding chair outside the Roundhouse in Yaletown. This is an area of Vancouver I seldom frequent, yet at that moment in time, it felt like the heart of the city, of my city. I was surrounded by cement and brick, skyscrapers looming above me and above the makeshift stage. The sun was setting, Alvin danced.
Alvin Erasga Tolentino. Photo by Alex Waterhouse-Hayward.
Knockabout Theatre Co. offers up a healthy dose of dirty fun in *Dirty Girls*, a modern fairy tale based on Edna St. Vincent Millay’s Two Slatterns and a King.
Dirty girls proving that they are indeed Dirty Girls.
You don’t often see a lot of genre work in live theatre, especially not in one man shows, typically reserved for more personal topics. Sebastian Kroon cuts straight against the grain in his solo show *Circus*, a chilling tale about a young boy’s fascination with a mysterious carnival.
This 1950s adaptation of Cinderella with a queer twist tells the story of Cindy and Betty, two friends and fellow housewives who are both dissatisfied with their mundane existences. When Cindy’s fairy-drag mother appears and suggests she might be happier as Sid rather than Cindy, it rekindles the hope for happiness in both women.
No artwork from the company but here's a picture of a woman with a tray of food
